The Whitecaps and Lions are under a bit of a different dynamic, and not just the sport being different. The Whitecaps are part of a league that in their sport is the highest tier in North America, but the Lions don’t.
Obviously most people here don’t perceive the CFL as lower, but as CFL fans you know that even most Canadians perceive the NFL as better.
Also, soccer is a much more ubiquitous sport than football in Canada generally.
Not sure that I agree. Liga MX is a higher level of soccer than MLS and I’m not sure what you mean by ubiquitous. If you mean participation rates that is true, but it’s always been true. People seem to think soccer had some sort of boom with MLS but we’ve always played soccer, it was in the schools and that may have transplanted itself to external playing leagues.
But it has never been popular as a TV viewing property in Canada and still isn’t as compared to CFL.
The problem that people have with the CFL are the unfair comparisons the haters make. They compare the CFL to its own past glories ie in the late 70s the Als could attract 60k fans. But when TFC sold out an 18k stadium, that was a great achievement but the Als were failures for only being able to attract 24k.
The year before the TFC championship run they had 38k total TV viewers and TSN was looking to cancel the contract. Can you imagine what would happen if the CFL had numbers like that. The league is dead, the league is dead!
CFL teams in the west would all have fair value .
Sask , Winnipeg , Calgary , Edmonton and even BC would be worth double digits with Sask leading the way with at least 30 million and then going down from that point .
Hamilton and Ottawa would be close but Ottawa has a anchor of debt that is being weighed with office space . retail and one side of the facility needing repairs .
Therefore Hamilton would be the highest value in the East . Lets say at least 15 million as a starting point .
Not sure Montreal or Toronto has any real value other than they can be used for other ventures . As the new owners they want to have fun but also see the Als as a goodwill investment in Quebec as they run a few businesses out of the province and have other investments .
Same for Toronto . A moderate rich owner (s) can buy into a pro franchise in the CFL easily next to the other majors which are now billionaire only owners need apply . For that you get a buy into a well established league with fixed media rights already established even though in my opinion could be better if all the eggs were not kept in one basket . In Toronto’s case we have MLSE not wanting an outsider in at BMO and one third of that contingent gets to protect the before mentioned eggs .
So for Toronto and Montreal Lets say you have the money to pay lots of debt and the value comes from ancillary sources .
So lets say one dollar plus all the debt you can afford to pay which could be millions unknown . So Montreal owners could be paying way more for Montreal than than Regina in year one and two .
With some new media deals the value of all teams will double or triple over night even the big cities could pull in money for domestic and international deals getting a better return on advertising . Probably why they gamble on spring leagues down south over and over again there is big money potential in pro football right now .